Limited Palette
by mantisbelle
Summary: They paint the world in red and white and black and yellow.


She dreams of a world of red and white and black and yellow.

The sound of her aspirations is growls and howls, clicks and cries. It claws through the mind and reaches for something that isn't necessarily there. It disturbs and disrupts, it grows and strengthens and only stretches further and further.

She paints her world in red and white and black and yellow.

Black for the base, something strong and impossible to ignore. It's everything and it is nothing. It's matter as well as a void. She shapes black like clay. She forms wings and legs, torsos and heads, all things that are yet to have their proper definition. In their final forms, they are ready but they are weak. They have the potential to be so much more.

White doesn't start as a base. It's an accent, something to contrast against the masses she has already created to make them stronger. It's the color of her skin, and for that reason she uses it sparingly. Beauty must be used sparingly. White makes her creations stronger. It gives them more meaning, makes them distinct from the animals that they are molded upon. White is special, but it belongs on every creation. She decides that quickly.

Red is the color of life. She paints it onto them, simple designs that bloom into something more intense and much more beautiful. It's around their eyes and down their brows. It cuts through their armor like scars. The red allows them to move. With red, her creatures shift and twist and turn to see her. They are drawn to her, to the red of her eyes. Red is the thing that makes them truly special. It's the blood that permits her creatures to breathe and stalk and prey upon the world. It's vitality itself.

Yellow is special and used only sparingly. It's something to make the strong stronger. It's venom and intelligence, but never together. It's an accent in the best situations. It's a mark that something is much more dangerous than the average beast.

Her creatures are beautiful and they are strong. They are perfect creations of red and white and black and yellow. They screech and scratch, they hunt and destroy. They are everything that she could have ever wanted. They are perfect corruptions and something that man should fear.

With them, she paints the world in red and white and black and yellow.

He dreams of a world in red and white and black and yellow.

He dreams of relics and maidens and saviors that will rescue the mankind from the darkness.

He dreams of a golden crown upon his head, and a white sword in his hand. He dreams of red battlefields and power so strong that it could cut through the black of night.

He dreams of girls with eyes that shine a divine white when monsters grow too close.

With a steady hand he molds heroes from red and white and black and yellow, the fact that he is not cut from those colors does not bother him. He has borne them before and he has carried their weight.

His time to be a man of red and white and black and yellow has long passed.

He pairs girls in white capes with men with yellow hair with boys and girls with red eyes and black hair. A perfect union, a set of four that should be able to counter whatever comes to face them.

He cannot account for what will happen when their colors fall out of balance. One child of red and black cannot play both roles when the other departs and takes her colors with her. The man in yellow hair clings to a little girl with yellow hair when his love leaves him behind, and only blinding white can bring him back.

White peters out into nothing in the darkness.

One child of black and red is left with a man with yellow hair, to care for the daughters of red and black and white and yellow when they have no white and black and red can only be used sparingly.

The children grow. They mold themselves into warriors of red and yellow.

They come to his school, and he chooses pairs for them.

He chooses a girl in white from a family that knows only gold. He chooses a girl cut from black that has only ever known red.

They balance each other out. They are strong and they are indomitable. They are smart and kind, and they only look to take care of those around them. They cut through forces and red and white and black and yellow to keep light in the world.

The world is imperfect. Heroes fall but so do monsters.

Together, she and him paint the world in red and white and black and yellow.


End file.
